right to health panel – a2k4 – public awareness and shared global responsibility

A2K4 Panel III. The Right to Health: Promoting Innovation and Equity

Thana Cristina de Campos, Fundação Getúlio Vargas Law School – Sao Paulo

Wants to raise public awarness on a shared global responsiblity. Phramaceutical companies have the knowledge and power and responsibility bec it places us in a position to act.

Access to medicine is a human right. 4 principles: availability, accessibility, treatment acceptablity, and good quality. Accessibility is most important esp in marginalized communities.

Amy Kapczynski, UC Berkeley School of Law

What do we mean by human rights in this context? is it a philosophical perception or economic and welfare system etc. There is also the human rights machinery. Focusing on access to medicine issues because they are the most developed in human rights health issues.

There are issues of obligations to non-state parties, and also obligations to non-nationals. How does the right to medicine apply transnationally? It is hard to talk about corporate responsibility and about transnational responsibility.

Talha Syed, UC Berkeley School of Law

Distributed justice is much better framework than human rights. Information economics is not that bad.

Christopher Mason, Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University

Patenting Genes: what are genomic rights? What if someone took some of the cells you leave behind when you walk or sit and created a clone of you? this is not illegal, but it is most certainly disturbing. There is precedent to genomic rights in US history.